Tag Archives: Cindy Koepp

This is a review I did on Goodreads of a book by an Indie author I met through PDMI Publishing. It is the first book of hers that I have read, but I couldn’t help but try to promote it. So here is what I wrote on Goodreads (hoping that I don’t make her beautiful story into an instant worst-seller);

Good science fiction is usually based on an engaging premise that makes you think about it long after the story is finished. Cindy Koepp’s book is like that. The Eshuvani race of aliens crash land their generation ship on the planet Earth in 1612, in the region of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. They encounter the human race with weapons drawn. But a brave and dedicated human cleric defuses the situation and convinces two peoples to learn about each other peacefully. The Eshuvani are converted to Christianity and with their superior technology, choose to try to peacefully share a planet rather than go to war as an alien invader.

But an even more fascinating thing about this book is that it doesn’t choose to be about that first-contact event. It is a hard-boiled police procedural novel set in 1965. Two police forces, one Eshuvani, and the other human, are faced with the problem of alien terrorists attacking the human police for reasons unknown. It leads to a story filled with suspense, murder, kidnapping, and racial tensions blooming into violence between two different races.

So this book is a murder mystery and a story of anti-terrorist police procedure at the same time as it is a form of science fiction known as alternate history. It leads you to want more stories set in the same alternate reality. And it is filled with engaging characters about whom you want to know more.

Amaya, the kiand or captain of the Eshuvani law enforcers, is an instantly likable character whom you can’t help but root for as she struggles with loss of her family and her former partner, the inexplicable difficulties and road-blocks put in her way by her own government, and the need to form a new functioning department out of young and untried Eshuvani officers… all while being hunted and attacked occasionally by the terrorists.

Ed Osborn is her human counterpart, and also her “urushalon”, her inter-species adopted child. He has the difficult task of trying to fight off the Eshuvani terrorists who seem to have his men in the center of the cross-hairs of their weapon-sights, while at the same time trying to teach his men about an alien race and culture that they are trying to work beside and integrate with.

This novel is definitely worth the read for science fiction lovers, and people who like to think deep thoughts about how we would react to an entire race of beings forcing us to share our planet, just as their journey was also interrupted with difficult choices forced upon them.